Reply #21: that claim needs to be clarified

[OnTheOtherHand]

No sample count can "confer at least 99% statistical confidence that the ballots cast are (the) same ballots tabulated." A sample of 10% (or whatever) in each precinct will yield an estimate of the true vote proportion, with a margin of error (or, more generally, a series of confidence levels). It can't tell you whether the original count was right -- in any precinct or in all precincts -- although it can tell you if the original count is likely to have been way off.

A 10% sample in a California statewide race is certainly large enough (if everything else is shipshape) to confirm the winners of all but the very closest races. A 10% sample in a House race often won't be large enough to confirm the winner. (I'm using "often" loosely here: it's pretty good down to perhaps a 2-point margin or less depending on the confidence level you want, and close races are not all that common -- but they are the ones people tend to worry most about verifying.) If Californians want to count 10% of ballots in statewide races even when 2% audits would be ample, I don't object, but we shouldn't be purveying the idea that a 10% figure justifies confidence when it doesn't.

I see the appeal of 'instant auditing' -- although it seems to me that you are going to have to secure the ballots anyway, so it doesn't fundamentally solve any problem. (If the audit raises doubts about the outcome, what happens next?) It may be possible to combine 'instant' and after-the-fact sampling techniques. And it has been a lo-o-o-o-ong time since I've read the Titanium Standard proposal, so I may be forgetting important provisions.